A Replete Bourgeoisie and a Craving Bourgeoisie

Published:Proletary, No. 20, October 10 (September 27), 1905.

      Published according to the text inProletary.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 9,

      pages316-322.Translated:The Late Abraham Fineberg and Julius KatzerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

LeTemps, one of the most influential organs of the French conservative
bourgeoisie, is waging a most desperate campaign against socialism, and it is a
rare day on which one fails to see in its columns the names of Marx, Bebel,
Guesde and Jaurès, accompanied by the most vicious comment and
vituperation.Le Tempscannot speak of socialism without trembling with
rage.

Thenewspaper is following what well-intentioned Europeans call the Russian
“crisis”, with the utmost attention, and never fails to offer
edifying counsel tola nation amie et alliée—the“friendly and allied nation”. Thus on the present occasion, too, it
devotes its leading article to the recent Zemstvo Congress. It recalls the
preceding July Congress and cannot refrain even in retrospect from expressing
its dissatisfaction. It was, you see, “a spectacle of utter incoherence
of ideas and of complete incertitude of intention”; the Bulygin scheme
was already known, but the delegates nevertheless confined themselves to
“violent speeches”, without being able to come to a decision on the
question of boycott or participation. The organ of the French ruling bourgeoisie
even reminds the Zemstvo delegates with irritation that they had no mandates!

Onthe contrary, what a smile of satisfaction has now come over the face of the
bourgeois who is replete with political power! How graciously he hastens to
shake the noble hand of hisconfrèrewho as yet is only craving for
political power, but who is already revealing his “maturity”! The boycott
has been rejected, and now nothing more is being said about the absence of
mandates. “The decision of the Zemstvo delegates,” saysLe Temps,
“does them credit.... It shows thatthe political education of the most enlightened elements of the Russian people
is progressing, and that they are abandoning vague plans of political
prestidigitation, to enter boldly on the path of necessary evolution.”

Thebourgeois who is replete with political power and who has experience of what
real victories of the people, the workers and peasants, lead to in revolutions,
has no hesitation in declaring the September Congress of the liberal land lords
and merchants a victory of evolution over revolution.

Hepraises the “moderation” of the Congress. He points with evident
satisfaction to the rejection of the resolutions on “parcelling up the
land” and on suffrage for women. “The wisdom and moderation of these
decisions clearly indicate that the opinions of the extreme parties did not
prevail at this Congress. The programme agreed on is sufficiently democraticto disarm the revolutionaries. Since the Zemstvo Congress expects to
put its plans into effect solely by lawful means, its programme may also rally
those reformists whom personal issues will not cut off from the rest of the
Congress.

Thereplete bourgeois slaps the craving bourgeois encouragingly on the
shoulder—to have advanced a programme “sufficiently
democratic” to throw dust into people’s eyes anddisarm the
revolutionaries, and have taken the path of legality, that is in plain and
straightforward language to have come to terms with the Trepovs and
Romanovs—that is true statesman-like wisdom.

Thatthe hopes which the shrewd bourgeois places in simple minded
revolutionaries are not quite groundless has been proved by our wiseacres of the
newIskra. They have dropped the reins and dashed into a trap; they are
eagerly proposing to exact democratic pledges from the moderate bourgeois, who
are now prepared heart and soul to promise anything and to pledge themselves to
anything. It is not only in struggle between hostile parties, but even in the
struggle within the socialist parties (as we found from experience after the
Second Congress) that all promises go by the board, once the more or less
substantial interests of the contending parties are involved. As the English
saying goes—promises like pie-crust are leaven to be

			       broken.[1]

WhatdidIskra’stactics with regard to the Duma boil down to? To the
    ideological and tacticaldisarmament of the revolutionaries.The
    wiseacres of the opportunistIskraworked for this disarmament by
    denouncing the idea of an active boycott, substituting (fully in the spirit
    ofNovoye Vremya,[2]and almost in the same terms) a
    passive boycott for an active, preaching confidence and trustfulness in the
    Milyukovs and Stakhoviches who now embrace each other, andreplacingthe revolutionary slogan of insurrection withOsvobozhdeniye’sbourgeois twaddle, such as the
    “revolutionary self-government of citizens

Itis only the blind who can still fail to see what a swampIskrahas
floundered into. In the illegal press it is completely isolated, withonly
Osvobozhdeniyeon its side. The Bund, which even Martov and Axelrod will
not suspect of any liking for the“Vperyodarsenal”, has
come out resolutely for an active boycott. In the legal press all the scoundrels
and all the moderate liberals have united against the radical bourgeois who have
voiced sympathy with the boycott and are disposed towards the peasantry in a
most friendly way.

Well,did Lenin tell any falsehood when, in analysing thenew-Iskraresolutions, he said in hisTwo Tacticsthat“Iskra” is
descending to the level of the liberal landlords, whileProletaryis endeavouring to raise the level of the revolutionary peasants?

Wehave mentionedNovoye Vremya.Both that reptile of an organ andMoskovskiye Vedomostiare waging a desperate struggle against the idea
of a boycott, thereby revealing to all and sundry the Duma’s actual political
significance. As a sample, here is a typical outburst byNovoye Vremya,
which we shall dwell on the more readily as it is shedding new light on the
abysmal bourgeois vileness displayed by even such a “respectable”
liberal organ asRusskiye Vedomosti.

Mr.Yollos, its well-known Berlin correspondent, deals with the Jena Congress in
No. 247. To begin with, his philistine soul rejoices at the fact that there has
appeared such a kind-hearted and fair-minded bourgeois liberal, the wealthy
Abbe, who has made to the city of Jena the gift of a People’s House, in which
all parties, including even the Social-Democrats, are free to meet. And
Mr. Yollos draws the moral:

“One can benefit the people outside definite party boundstoo.” That, of course, is true. But what are we to say of a writer, who, at a
time of desperate party struggle in Russia, indulges in praise of
non-partisanship? Doesn’t Mr. Yollos really understand that this is a piece of
the worst political tactlessness, since he is thereby playing into the hands ofNovoye Vremya?The true meaning of this philistine delight in
non-partisanship will, however, become apparent to the reader from the following
statement by Mr. Yollos:

“Needless to say there are political conditions under which it is useful
for the time beingto keep ultimate aims to oneself, and to bear in
mind the immediate aims common to socialism and to liberalism.”

Nowthat is frank! Thank you, Mr. Yollos, for at least being explicit! It
remains for us, whenever addressing the workers, to make use of such declaration
at all times and on all occasions to show up thebourgeoisnature of
Russian liberalism, and to make clear to the workers the need for anindependentparty of the proletariat, one that is undeviatingly hostile
to the bourgeoisie, even the most liberal.

Butall these tirades by our “democrat” are nothing compared with
what is to come. Mr. Yollos does not confine him self to advising the
proletariat “to keep its ultimate aims to itself for the time
being”, i.e., renounce socialism. No, he also advises renouncing the idea
of bringing the present political revolution to its consummation. Mr. Yollos
cites a speech by Bebel and plays up the passage in which Bebel expresses doubt
as to whether we can succeed in transforming Russia into a civilised state
“so soon”, while at the same time declaring that the old autocratic
regime will never return, and “the old Russia is no longer
possible”. Concerning this passage Mr. Yollos writes the following:
“I do not consider Bebel an authority on Russian affairs, but I must
observe that in this part of his speech he differs favourably from Kautsky and
several other doctrinaires who recommendRevolution in Permanenz(uninterrupted revolution).

As a clever man and politician who realises what
concrete forms a state of uninterrupted anarchy assumes in the life of a
nation, Bebel sees progress primarily in the promotion of cultural aims, and his
words make it quite clear that he draws no line of demarcation and certainly
erects no barriers between the Russianintelligentsia and the Russian proletariat, at any rate before the elementary
rights of man have been secured.”

Firstof all this is alibel on Bebel, a libel fully in the style ofNovoye Vremya. Bebel always and unequivocally draws a “line of
demarcation” between bourgeois and proletarian democratism; Mr. Yollos
cannot be ignorant of that. Bebel distinguishes in no uncertain fashion between
the bourgeois intelligentsia and the Social-Democratic intelligentsia. To assure
the Russian reader that Bebel, while fighting for “culture”, ever
hushes up the mendacity and treachery of the bourgeois democrats on the one
hand, and the socialist aims of the working class on the other, means slandering
in the grossest manner the leader of revolutionary Social-Democracy in Germany.

Secondly,it does not at all follow from Bebel’s speech that he regards the
Russian revolution otherwise than Kautsky. The “favourable
difference” in this respect between Bebel and Kautsky is a sheer
fabrication by Mr. Yollos, who has extracted and distorted a single passage in
Bebel’s speech, while maintaining silence about Bebel’s numerous declarations
fully in favour of the Russian revolution and its decisive victory.

Thirdly—andfor us this is the most interesting feature of the stand taken
byRusskiye Vedomosti—Mr. Yollos’s outburst shows that he isa/raidof a decisive victory of the revolution in Russia. Mr. Yollos
says that “uninterrupted revolution” is “uninterrupted
anarchy”. To say that means saying that revolution is sedition; to say
that means becoming atraitor to the revolution. And let not theOsvobozhdeniyediplomatists, who are so fond of asserting that they
have no enemies on their left, try to tell us that this is only an accidental
slip on the part ofRusskiye Vedomosti. That is not true. It is an
expression of the most profound sentiments and the most deep-rooted interests of
the liberal landlord and the liberal manufacturer. It is the same thing as the
statement made by Mr. Vinogradov, who is calling for a struggle to prevent the
Russian revolution from entering on the path of 1789. It is the same as the
servility of Mr. Trubetskoi, who told the tsar that he disapproved of
sedition. This is no slip. It is the sole truthful statement in words on the
count less disgraceful deeds of our bourgeois democrats, who areweariedof “uninterrupted anarchy”, are beginning to long
forlaw and order, are alreadytiredof “fighting”

.(eventhough they never did any fighting), andalready recoilfrom
revolution at the mere sight of workers and peasants actually rising for actual
battle, eager to strike blows, and not receive them. The bourgeois democrats are
prepared to wink at the misdeeds of the Trepovs and the slaughter of unarmed
people; they are not afraid of that, but of “anarchy” of a quite
different kind, when power will no longer be wielded by Trepov or by
Petrunkevich and Rodichev, and the uprising of the peasants and workers will bevictorious. The bourgeois democrats rally to the Duma idea so eagerly
for the very reason that they see in it an earnest of the betrayal of the
revolution, an earnest of the prevention of the complete victory of the
revolution—that terrible “uninterrupted anarchy”.

NovoyeVremyaprovides evidence of the fact that our analysis of the
liberals’ psychology is a faithful one. These dyed-in-the-wool lackeys of the
Trepovs took immediate note ofRusskiye Vedomosti’sbaseness and
hastened to heartily embrace theirconfrères. It is
precisely this lie
of Mr. Yollos’s about Bebel “differing favourably” from Kautsky thatNovoye Vremyaof September 13 (26) cites approvingly, remarking in its
turn:

“Thus,our radical ‘absentees’ will have to exclude Bebel too from the
number of their allies.”

Thisis a perfectly legitimate conclusion. The professionalNovoye
Vremyatraitors have correctly appraised the sum and substance of the
“slip” made byRusskiye Vedomosti.

Morever,Novoye
Vremya, that past master of politics, at once drew a conclusionwith
regard to the Duma. Although Mr. Yollos did not say a word about Bebel’s
views on the boycott,Novoye Vremyanevertheless labelled as
“absentees” those in favour of the boycott.Novoye Vremyasupplemented the libel against Bebel with a libel against the
“radicals”, expressing, however, the absolutely correct opinion that
the “radical absentees’” tactics are governed by the idea of the complete
victory of the revolution, the idea of uninterrupted revolution, whereas the
pro-Duma liberals are prompted by the fear of “uninterrupted
anarchy”.Novoye Vremyais right. Trepov’s lackeys were fully
justified in catching Mr. Yollos in the actand telling him: If you do not want “uninterrupted anarchy” then it
      follows that you are my ally, and no democratic bombast will dissuade me
      of this. Ours is a minor family quarrel—against the
      “doctrinaires”, the supporters of “uninterrupted
      anarchy”, however, we shall be at one!

WillIskrafail to realise even now that in reproaching the boycott
supporters with abstention, i.e.,absenteeism, it was talking after theNovoye Vremyafashion? Can it fail to realise that this concurrence of
its slogans with those ofNovoye Vremyaproves that there is something
fundamentally false in its stand?

Thereplete European bourgeoisie lauds the moderation of the Russian
bourgeoisie, which is craving for power. Trepov’s lackeys laud Mr. Yollos ofRusskiye Vedomostifor censuring the idea of “uninterrupted
anarchy”. TheNovoye Vremyaand new-Iskragentry scoff
at “absenteeism”....

[1]This phrase is in English in the original.—Ed.

[2]Novaye Vremya(New Times)—a newspaper
published in St. Peters burg from 1868 to October 1917. Moderately liberal at
the outset, it became, after 1876, the organ of reactionary circles of the
nobility and the bureaucracy. The paper was hostile not only to the
revolutionary movement, but even to the liberal-bourgeois. Following 1905 it
became an organ of the Black Hundreds. Lenin calledNovoye Vremyathe
acme of venality in the press.